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DEPRECIATION IN VITRUVIUS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

T.E. Rihll
T.E. Rihll*
Affiliation:
Swansea University
*
t.e.rihll@swansea.ac.uk
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Extract

Vitruvius has something interesting to say at De architectura 2.8.8:

Non enim quae sunt e molli caemento subtili facie venustatis, non eae possunt esse in vetustate non ruinosae. itaque cum arbitrio communium parietum sumuntur, non aestimant eos quanti facti fuerint, sed cum ex tabulis inveniunt eorum locationes, pretia praeteritorum annorum singulorum deducunt octogesimas et ita – ex reliqua summa parte reddi pro his parietibus – sententiam pronuntiant eos non posse plus quam annos LXXX durare.

Those structures made of soft rubble, for all their subtle attractiveness, are not the ones that will resist ruin as time passes. And thus when assessors are appointed to evaluate party walls, they never assess soft rubble walls according to their initial cost, but rather, when they look at the price recorded in the original contracts, they deduct 1/80th of that sum for each subsequent year, and the remaining amount is fixed as the current value of the walls. They have rendered judgement, in effect, that such walls cannot last more than 80 years.

By contrast, mud-brick walls were not depreciated at all if they were standing when assessed (Vitr. 2.8.9). The calculation performed for concrete walls demonstrates clear understanding of what we call ‘depreciation’ or ‘amortization’ in ancient Roman thought. It appears to have been overlooked to date.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 893 - 897
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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References

1 In this paper the text used is that of Fensterbusch, C., Vitruv Zehn Bücher über Architektur (Berlin, 1964)Google Scholar, and the translation of I.D. Rowland in id. and Howe, T., Vitruvius Ten Books on Architecture (Cambridge, 1999)Google Scholar.

2 This is walls with concrete fill. See below on the historical context of Vitruvius' comment.

3 It is absent from every ancient economic history study I have checked, e.g. Bowman, A. and Wilson, A. (edd.), Quantifying the Roman Economy (Oxford, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Verboven, K., Vandorpe, K. and Chankowski, V. (edd.), Pistoi dia tèn Technèn: Bankers, Loans and Archives in the Ancient World. Studies in Honour of Raymond Bogaert (Leuven, 2008)Google Scholar; Scheidel, W., Morris, I. and Saller, R. (edd.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (Cambridge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, D., The Bankers of Puteoli (Stroud, 2006)Google Scholar; Archibald, Z.H., Davies, J.K. and Gabrielsen, V. (edd.), Making, Moving and Managing: the New World of Ancient Economics 323–31 bc (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar; Mitchell, S. and Katsari, C. (edd.) Patterns in the Economy of Roman Asia Minor (Swansea, 2005)Google Scholar; Aubert, J.-J. and Sirks, B. (edd.), Speculum Iuris: Roman Law as a Reflection of Social and Economic Life in Antiquity (Ann Arbor, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Macve, R., ‘Some glosses on “Greek and Roman accounting”’, in Cartledge, P. and Harvey, D. (edd.), Crux: Essays Presented to G.E.M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th Birthday (Exeter, 1985), 233–64Google Scholar; id., ‘Insights to be gained from the study of ancient accounting history: some reflections on the new edition of Finley's Ancient Economy’, European Accounting Review 11.2 (2002), 453–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lo Cascio, E., Il Princeps e il suo Impero: Studi di storia amministrativa e finanziaria romana (Bari, 2000)Google Scholar; Price, B.B. (ed.), Ancient Economic Thought (London, 1997)Google Scholar; Rathbone, D., Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-century a.d. Egypt (Cambridge, 1991)Google Scholar; Finley, M.I., The Ancient Economy (Berkeley, 1973)Google Scholar; Rostovtzeff, M., The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 1942)Google Scholar; and Toutain, J., L'Économie Antique (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar. Vitruvius editors and commentators discuss it only in the context of Vitruvius' long debated attitude to new building materials and techniques: see e.g. Rowland and Howe (n. 1), 11–12, or Wilson-Jones, M., Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven, 2000), 33–47Google Scholar, both excellent discussions, the former from the perspective of the history of technology and the latter of historiography.

4 See e.g. Cunningham, K., ‘Which concept of depreciation should guide us? – trying to develop a consistent framework for the federal income tax system’, Virginia Tax Review 14 (1994–5), 753–77Google Scholar.

5 For present purposes the precise date of Vitruvius' text is not important. Wilson-Jones (n. 3), 34 attempts to reconcile all differences by supposing that he wrote the bulk of it between 28 and 23 b.c., while relying to a large extent on what he learned in the 50s and 40s b.c.

6 Strabo 5.3.7 (C235). Strabo was approximately contemporary with Vitruvius.

7 Cato, Agr. 14.1; cf. Adam, J.-P., Roman Building: Materials and Techniques (London, 1994), 79–80Google Scholar; the first certain example is the temple of Magna Mater on the Palatine, consecrated in 204 b.c.

8 See e.g. Lancaster, L.C., Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome (Cambridge, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Adam (n. 7), 73. Hadrianic Ostia, which shapes many moderns' perceptions of an ancient city, was not a ‘normal’ site, and even within it, there is large variation in the quality of the mortar in particular, and the build in general; see DeLaine, J., ‘The cost of creation: technology at the service of construction’, in Lo Cascio, E. (ed.), Innovazione tecnica e progresso economico nel mondo romano (Bari, 2006), 237–252, at 241–2Google Scholar.

10 I am grateful to one of the referees for raising this point.

11 Strong, D., ‘The administration of public buildings in Rome in the late republic and early empire’, BICS 15 (1968), 97–109Google Scholar, esp. 101.

12 Rowland and Howe (n. 1), 9–10. Howe observes (p. 184) that Vitruvius' text makes ‘clear that the process of re-evaluating and improving concrete … was underway in the decade in which he was writing’.

13 Strong (n. 11), 103–4.

14 Strabo 5.3.7 (C235); Vitr. 2.8. 17.

15 Fussell, G.E., Robert Loder's Farm Accounts 1610–1620 f.23v, 24r, Camden Third Series 53 (London, 1936)Google Scholar, 21, 22, 54, 56. These accounts are frequently cited in the literature on the rise of capitalism, e.g. by Toms, S., ‘Calculating profit: a historical perspective on the development of capitalism’, Accounting, Organizations and Society 35 (2010), 205–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar and references there. I wish to thank Bruce Gibson for finding the published version of this paper.

16 Mason, P., ‘Illustrations of the early treatment of depreciation’, The Accounting Review 8.3 (1933), 209–18, at 209Google Scholar.

17 See Rathbone (n. 3), esp. 376–7 for discussion of the Heroninos archive.

18 Macve (n. 3 [1985]), 241 n. 24.

19 See Crosby, A.W., The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society 1250–1600 (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 10 (199–223). Historians of that period are better qualified than am I to pursue that possibility.

20 Cited in Woodward, P.D., ‘Depreciation – the development of an accounting concept’, The Accounting Review 31.1 (1956), 71–6, at 71Google Scholar.

21 Leake, P.D., Depreciation and Wasting Assets (London, 1912)Google Scholar.

22 See Macve (n. 3 [1985]), esp. 247–8 and Cunningham (n. 4).

23 Fraumeni, B.A., ‘The measurement of depreciation in the US national income and product accounts’, Survey of Current Business 77 (July 1997), 7–23Google Scholar. See also Cunningham (n. 4).

24 Fraumeni (n. 23), 18 table 3.

25 As distinct from buildings as a whole, which may be (and in the modern world, are) subject to declining serviceableness arguments; see Cunningham (n. 4), 767–9.

26 I am indebted to the editors and anonymous readers for their constructive comments on the first draft of this paper.